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Tale of two cities

Columbus stands in contrast to cities headed for bankruptcy

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Dispatch editorials express the view of the
Dispatch editorial board, which is made up of the publisher, the president of
The Dispatch, the editor and the editorial-writing staff. As is the traditional newspaper
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The budget recently proposed by Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman is one to celebrate: A
thriving city has emerged from a rocky recession and its fiscal course is pointed in the right
direction.

Columbus probably would be the envy of many cities, including, for example, San Bernardino,
Calif., which made the news recently because it is bankrupt.

San Bernardino’s leaders succumbed to a dynamic that has afflicted more than one government:
Politicians are elected with the support of public-employee unions and then reward those unions
with lavish pay and pension benefits, all at the expense of taxpayers. In San Bernardino, elected
city officials entered into this unspoken mutual-aid pact with police and fire unions.

Meanwhile, in Columbus, the mayor and City Council and city-employee unions have taken a
different path. They cooperated. They put the residents first, grasping that a strong city is in
everyone’s long-term best interest.

In 2009, for example, city firefighters delayed pay raises in order to help the city balance its
budget. More recently, city unions agreed to have workers pay a greater share of their health-care
and pension costs. In all, these changes are projected to save $210 million through 2019.

Instead of heading toward bankruptcy, Columbus is striving to tuck away $75 million in its
rainy-day fund.

San Bernardino, on the other hand, shows what happens when leaders fail to put taxpayers
first.

A recent Reuters story in
The Dispatch described the once-prosperous San Bernardino, population 213,000, as “a
bankrupt, crime-ridden, foreclosure-blighted basket case. ... Unions poured money into city council
elections, and the council poured money into union pay and pensions.”

City workers grew richer as the city grew poorer. The newspaper
U-T San Diego’s editorial board pegs San Bernardino’s bankruptcy on a 1995 city charter
amendment “engineered by the police and firefighter unions” that required salaries to be based on
much-wealthier communities. This boosted pay to unbelievable levels. Adjusting for inflation, a
typical firefighter’s salary nearly doubled between 1997 and 2010, to $147,000.

Pension benefits were equally lavish.

The only people who weren’t in on the deal were the rest of the voters of San Bernardino, who
trusted their elected leaders to protect their interests.